Subsequent yr, NASA plans to scoop up a small batch of filth from an asteroid named Bennu, positioned thousands and thousands of miles from Earth — and now the company is aware of which a part of the house rock it’s going to steal from. As we speak, the house company introduced that considered one of its spacecraft will attempt to grab some particles from a 20-meter-wide crater, known as Nightingale, on the asteroid.
Engineers picked the Nightingale website from 4 last candidate spots on Bennu, arguing it may very well be the most effective place to search out natural materials and water on the asteroid that will hail from the earliest days of the Photo voltaic System. “This one actually got here out on high, due to the scientific worth,” Dante Lauretta, the principal investigator of the asteroid sampling mission, mentioned throughout a press convention asserting the choice. Nevertheless, focusing on the crater isn’t with out danger. The realm is surrounded by a big wall of rocks, which may make it troublesome to seize a pattern. However finally, Lauretta mentioned the realm may have what they’re searching for.